About CxXchange
Stone Soup: A Tale of Community
In a small village hit by famine, nobody had enough food. One day, a wise visitor set up a big pot in the town square. She put a stone in it, filled it with water and began to stir, deeply inhaling the nonexistent aroma.
A curious villager asked, "What are you making?" The visitor smiled and said, "It's stone soup. I can't wait. It's going to be delicious!" The villager, skeptical yet intrigued, remarked, "I can't smell anything." The visitor explained the soup's unique magic: its aroma and taste would only manifest if others contributed to it.
Inspired, the villager added an onion. Then, more villagers joined in. One added a carrot, another a turnip, then some mushrooms, and even some scraps of meat. As each member of the community added something, the pot began to simmer with a rich, inviting aroma. By the end of the day, what started as a pot of water and a stone transformed into a nourishing soup that fed the whole village and brimmed with the flavors of the village's collective generosity.
CxXchange: A Community of Collaborators
This simple, yet profound, story of Stone Soup mirrors what we do in the CxXchange community.
Just like the villagers, each member contributes something: Knowledge, resources, experience, questions, or support. And just like the soup, when we all add something, it becomes something AMAZING. It shows that when we all work together, we can make great things happen.
CxXchange is something far greater than the sum of its parts: a thriving, vibrant community where everyone benefits. The magic lies not in the stone, but in the collective contributions of all, exemplifying the power of community and collaboration.
CxXchange: Origins
The full name for CxXchange is Customer Success Xelerator Xchange, a community to “Xelerate” your career and “Xchange” ideas. It started as CS Office Hours. Actually, before that, it was Office Hours.
It started back in February 2022. Jan Young posted on LinkedIn that a startup where she was interim VP of CS was hiring a VP, several CSMs, and Onboarding and Support managers. When she received ~80 messages asking for half hour meetings, she opted to schedule an hour when folks could drop by, learn about the company and the roles, and ask questions. Not everyone would be hired, so the session quickly turned into general advice and a discussion about Customer Success best practices.
We kept meeting. One week, when Jan was traveling, another leader offered to lead and keep the discussion going. In August 2022, Jan was talking to Jasonda Desmond about Customer Education and suggested she come and answer questions about her expertise so others could learn more about it. Then Kristine Kucich offered to share her expertise about Customer Marketing. That’s how CS Office Hours developed the format of CS Leaders co-leading session topics.
In Fall 2022, attendance was growing, and newcomers didn’t feel as comfortable asking questions in a larger group. So much of the value was gained through asking questions and discussion, we decided to add breakout groups. That’s how the format of 20-20-20 (20 minutes Topic Intro, 20 - Breakouts, 20 Group Discussion) was formed for CS Office Hours.
From the beginning, people were always encouraged to share their LinkedIn profile and share resources in the chat. But then the chat would close and it all went into the ether. Sharook Arshad suggested starting a slack community, and we went from a virtual meetup to a community in January 2023.
In Spring 2023, some of the session co-leads had slides to help get their ideas across. Jan was resistant at first. The power had always been in the discussion, but complex ideas can be made simple with visuals, so the slide format was added– 1-3 slides, anything beyond that became a resource, and folks could download the slides. We also read all the feedback we receive - from that we added breakout session questions and notes to record all of the ideas and resources people shared.
Along the way, the mock interview channel was added in the community, and job search cohorts were self-organized for CS Leaders and CSMs. Cinthia Silva and Maryann Lazzeri started a book club. Shaun Porcar led the expansion of job search cohorts into Collaboration Groups
As Jan traveled to different cities, she suggested gathering in person. In 2023, that included Nashville, TN, Washington DC, and New York, NY. It had become clear that this was no longer just a CS Office Hour. This was a community. In Fall 2023, Jan thought about the childhood tale, Stone Soup and posted about it on LinkedIn.
2024!
Our community has been renamed CxXchange, our weekly sessions are now called SuccessHour, our CxX Book Club meets monthly, and our Collaborations Groups are active. We’ve launched our website and we’re building up our YouTube page for our past sessions and adding all of our resources to our website!